30 Jan 24 - ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso Day 13 - Grenada: Our First Caribbean Run Ashore To Grand Etang

In the previous Blog Post, I covered the first half of my run ashore to Grenada: our first Caribbean destination on the Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise. Having seen the two Grenada endemics at Mount Hartman, I reckoned I had enough time to have the best part of an hour at the Grand Etang National Park, looking for the final potential Tick on the island: Lesser Antillean Tanager. I walked quickly backed to the taxi & we left for the Grand Etang. Fortunately, after my problems getting to Mount Hartman, the driver knew how to get to this well-visited National Park.

The upper parts of the island look quite lush as we travelled towards the Grand Etang

The first person I saw on arrival at the Grand Etang National Park was Charlotte. Her opening greeting was to tell me that she hadn't been impressed with the local bus trip up to the mountain. She also said that Jan & Terry were in the shop. I popped back to my taxi & confirmed that it would be OK for the other three to get a lift back to St George's with me. Fortunately, it was a small minivan & there was plenty of space for all of us. After paying the park entrance, I headed off for about thirty minutes towards the lake. Terry decided to join me, knowing that he didn't have to hang around for the appearance of the local bus. We spent some time photographing the local Hummingbirds & Bananaquits.

Green-throated Carib: This is the chlorolaemus subspecies which is restricted to Grenada. The other subspecies occurs on Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands & the rest of the Lesser Antilles

Green-throated Carib

Bananaquit: This is the aterrima subspecies which occurs on Grenada & the Grenadines. There is a different subspecies on St Vincent

Bananaquit: Overall there are about forty subspecies of Bananaquits described. Bananaquits occurs from the Caribbean & South East Mexico to Peru, Bolivia & North East Argentina

Bananaquit

Bananaquit

Bananaquit: Some of the Lesser Antilles subspecies are this sooty black colouration

Bananaquit: Most of the Bananaquits in their range look similar to this individual photographed on the Guajira Peninsula, Colombia (10 Mar 18)

I just love the vegetation on the branches of old Rainforest trees

After a while, I was convinced that there weren't any Lesser Antillean Tanagers with this group of Hummingbirds & Bananaquits. I decided to continue down towards the lake where Terry had seen the local tourist highlight: the Mona Monkeys.

There was some decent-looking trees around the lake

Also, a few good stands of Bamboo

Mona Monkey: Mona Monkeys are an introduced species, which arrived with some of the large numbers of slaves brought in from West Africa in the eighteenth century

Mona Monkey: Their natural range are the lowland forests of eastern Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria & West Cameroon

These two guys were making money out of group of tourists, having bribed the Mona Monkeys with bananas

I didn't hang around for long at the Mona Monkeys, as I was running out of time to look for my final potential Tick, Lesser Antillean Tanager. This Lesser Antillean endemic also occurs on St Vincent and the Grenadines. But, we were only stopping at Bequia, where there are few eBird records & therefore Grenada was my best location to see it. I returned to the trees where I had been watching the Hummingbirds and Bananaquits, but again I had no success. Fortunately, I bumped into a roving mixed flock as I wandered back to car park, which contained a Lesser Antillean Tanager in it. I watched it for a couple of minutes feeding in some tall Palms, before it flew on. But unfortunately, I failed to get any photos. It was time for us to head back to St George's.

Smooth-billed Ani: This photo was taken through the taxi window when we briefly pulled over to allow a bus to pass on a narrow piece of road. This monotypic species occurs throughout the West Indies, South East Mexico, Costa Rica South to West Ecuador & North Argentina and the Galápagos Islands

As I wandered back along the quayside, I bumped into this immature Loggerhead Turtle swimming just off the quay. After a while it dived underwater & didn't pop up again.

Loggerhead Turtle: Sea Turtles need to return to the surface to breath

Brown Booby: This is my attempt to recreate the photo of the Brown Booby that was seen at the base of the Bishop Rock Lighthouse at the end of Aug 23. It would have been better if the other individual in my photo, had been a Red-footed Booby

Tidal Spray Crab: There were a couple of showy Tidal Spray Crabs on the rocks by the jetty

Tidal Spray Crab: They are found in the Western Atlantic from North Carolina, US to Brazil, as well as, on the Canaries

I headed for the ship in the hope that I would get a better view of the body when it resurfaced. It was a bit too far, so I returned to the quay as the others were emerging from the tourist shops. We had another brief view of the Loggerhead Turtle, before we reboarded the ship. This was the chance for the others to introduce me to tea, coffee and mid-afternoon snacks in the lounge. Normally, we were on deck at this time, so I had missed out on this treat up to this point.

Charlotte's menagerie had grown: Apparently, the Turtle and Manta Ray were hers. But the Octopus and the Flamingo were planned as gifts for young relatives

The profiteroles were gorgeous: But two were only the equivalent of one UK shop bought profiterole

There was a good sunset that evening: It had been a good start to our time ashore in the Caribbean with four Ticks

After the sunset, we headed down for an early evening drink: Time to plan for the next shore run in Barbados

30 Jan 24 - ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso Day 13 - Grenada: Our First Caribbean Run Ashore To Mount Hartman

We were on deck as normal for dawn, so we could maximise our surveying time as we approached the island of Grenada: even if that only gave us an hour or two of survey time. It was then a dash for a late breakfast, as the ship was preparing to moor & the ship cleared customs. We were asked to give a few minutes for the Saga passengers to start going ashore before we disembarked, which allowed us the time to not have to hurry the food. This survey proved to be a good start to the Caribbean section when the only Audubon's Shearwater flew past. Unfortunately, I failed to get any photos as I carried on watching it with the bins. Some of the other local Birds were more photogenic.

Magnificent Frigatebird: This monotypic species occurs in the tropical West Atlantic & East Pacific Oceans

Brown Booby: This is the nominate leucogaster subspecies which occurs on islands in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean & the tropical Atlantic

Brown Booby

Jan (left) & Charlotte: Jan is the official surveyor as she has the ORCA bins. Charlotte, like the rest of us, was generally watching, when not talking to the passengers

The ship ran up the national flag as we approached Grenada: This is good etiquette, but it doesn't appear to be a compulsory action

All too soon we saw the Pilots boat appear: Usually this is the sign that we were too close inshore to be worth continuing to survey. But we carried on enjoying the view & pointing out Birds to the passengers

Our first view of St George's the capital of Grenada: Grenada is about 135 square miles in size, with a population of about one hundred and seventeen thousand at the time of our visit

The town doesn't extend far around the bay

Fort George dominates the high ground above the port: The fort was originally built by the French between 1706 & 1710, following their colonisation in 1649. The island remained under French control until its capture by the British in 1762, during the Seven Years' War. It was ceded to Great Britain in the following year by the Treaty of Paris. At this point, the fort was renamed Fort George

There was ongoing maintenance work on the fort

The port and town behind it

It's good to see the town hasn't been ruined by high buildings

Charlotte, Terry & Jan: Ashore & wearing civies: we always wore the ORCA clothing on ship, except for the evening meal

The port customs building which had a large shop behind it: We were greeted by a small Calypso band playing on their drums outside the building

Charlotte in soft toy heaven: Trying to decide how many she can adopt without Terry saying that's too many

Grenada: Preparations were already advanced for the celebration on 7 Feb of fifty years of independence from the UK

Once we were ashore & had dragged Charlotte away from the soft toy shop, we changed some money into local currency. My plan was to hire a taxi to visit Mount Hartman on the arid side of the island. Terry planned to take the others to the Grand Etang: a high elevation lake surrounded by lush forest, which he had visited on a previous trip. My key target species were the two Grenada endemics, Grenada Dove and Grenada Flycatcher, albeit the latter species also occurs on St Vincent & the Grenadines. Both species occur in the dry forest at Mount Hartman. I quickly arranged a taxi charter for a few hours to take me to the site, with an option to continue to Grand Etang National Park, if time allowed. The driver said he knew the area. But it became clear that he didn't, when we ended up in a building site. This area was once part of the National Park until the forest was destroyed to allow somebody to make a lot of money out of a new hotel complex.

The independence day flags hadn't reached the smaller villages yet

Fortunately, I had some directions to the park, but I hadn't been able to establish the site of the park HQ, where others had looked in the past. So, I ended up taking the driver along a dirt road to the edge of the park. The habitat looked good enough to try walking further through the dry scrubby forest, so I decided to give this track a punt.

There were good numbers of these cacti under the trees

Very quickly I started to bump into a few dry country Birds, but they were mainly the widespread common species. But I did see my first Grenada Flycatcher within the first ten to fifteen minutes: one Grenada endemic down & one to go.

Common Ground-dove: This is the antillarum subspecies which occurs in the Southern Lesser Antilles from St Lucia & Barbados to Grenada. It is a widespread species that occurs from South East of the United States, through the Caribbean and Central America and as far South as Colombia, Venezuela & North East Brazil

Antillean Crested Hummingbird: This is the emigrans subspecies which is restricted to Grenada and the Grenadines. Other subspecies occur in E Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands & elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles

Grey Kingbird: This is the vorax subspecies which occurs in the Lesser Antilles. Some winter from Trinidad to the Guianas. The green colouration is caused by a leaf in the foreground

Grenada Flycatcher: This monotypic Lesser Antillean endemic also occurs on St Vincent & the Grenadines

Cocoa Thrush: This is the personus subspecies which is restricted to Grenada. Other subspecies occur in St Vincent, as well as, from Colombia, Venezuela & Trinidad to Bolivia & Brazil

Tropical Mockingbird: This is the antillarum subspecies that occurs in Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent, the Grenadines & Grenada. Other subspecies occur from Mexico to Colombia, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela to Brazil

Lesser Antillean Grasshopper sp.

After about a mile, the track reached the coast. There was a bridge over an inlet which took me outside of the National Park. More crucially the habitat had changed from the arid forest to Mangroves, which was the wrong habitat for the Grenada Doves. The highlight in this area was a small group of Black-faced Grassquits: time to head back to the arid forest.

Black-faced Grassquit: Female or Immature. This is the omissa subspecies which occurs from Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles, Tobago, to North Venezuela & North Colombia

The bridge by the inlet

There were good numbers of yachts in the bay

On the way back along the track, I heard a calling Grenada Dove and headed off the path in search of it. I saw one and heard another two. Having seen the two Grenada endemics, I reckoned I had enough time to have the best part of an hour at the Grand Etang National Park. I walked quickly backed to the taxi & we left for the Grand Etang. Fortunately, the driver knew how to get to this well-visited National Park. I will cover the rest of the day in the next Blog Post.